DACS’s Christian Zimmermann on 20 Years of the Artist’s Resale Right

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Artist’s Resale Right in the UK, the royalty that allows artists and their estates to receive compensation when their works are resold. Since its introduction in 2006, ARR has generated significant income for artists while also sparking ongoing debate about who truly benefits and how it affects the art market. To explore its impact and evolution, host Adam Green speaks with Christian Zimmermann, CEO of DACS (the Design and Artists Copyright Society), the organization responsible for collecting and distributing resale royalties to visual artists and their beneficiaries in the UK. In the conversation, Christian explains how the Artist’s Resale Right works in practice, the history and policy context behind its adoption, and how the art world responded at the time. They discuss common misconceptions about resale royalties, examine the evidence around who benefits most from them, and consider how resale royalty legislation has spread globally over the past two decades, as well as whether the framework may need to evolve to reflect today’s increasingly international art market.